Play(ful) – Part II

I think “struggle” will have to be a topic one day… it’s something I definitely did a lot of that in the last few days!

With that said, though, I got some interesting results from my first self-assignment – play, ones that made me happy for various reasons. I’m just going to share my thoughts on each photo….

unexpected rainbow

Unexpected Rainbow

If you change your aperture to a large number, (close down your aperture – I can chat about that in more depth another time, if anyone is interested), you can partially hide the sun or another bright light and create a little star. With my creativity at a low, I decided to try this – and was shocked to download the photo and find a beautiful rainbow in the shot!

I am finding that just by trying one thing, you find something completely unexpected. And often, it’s quite thrilling that way!

tiny drop

Tiny Drop

In Crested Butte, spring is slow and summer feels very far away at this time of year. Our friends and family far away speak of green grass, warmer weather and getting outside while we receive snow just as we’re ready to melt out.

But it’s these signs that appear out of nowhere that I find exciting. Green sprouts, little droplets of “dew” (read: melting snow) and warmer breezes combined with a slow, lazy off season town. This is one of my favorite times of year…

hills and valleys

Hills and Valleys

I’ve always been intrigued by shapes and shadows. It hasn’t been until more recently that I started to enjoy taking photos in color. Traditionally, I’ve loved black and white far more. And when I want to get back to my roots, while “playful” isn’t the word the pops to mind, “fun” definitely does.

I have fun turning an otherwise mundane object into a thoughtful, unexpected photo. (Can anyone guess what this is?)

hooked

Hooked

In this photo, I enjoyed playing with color. It’s more vibrant here than it is in real life and the shapes are so interesting to me. Why would you put a hook on the side of your garage?

How did I feel about this project?

Honestly, I feel like I could have embraced it more. I could give you the litany of why it ended up falling a little flat for me right now, but basically it boils down to being distracted by life.

What it did bring to light is how I felt about taking photos right now – like I “needed” to because I’d committed to a blog post. It became a job instead of a joy before the fact

But I did find out was that the “getting out” was the hard part, once I was out taking photos, I did enjoy it! I didn’t do the things I wanted to do so that I could get out of my head (jumping on the trampoline, finding something funny to contemplate, dancing wildly for no reason), but I moved myself forward to do this and, frankly, that felt really good. I did get to the “enjoying taking photos” part and that was important for me – even if it still didn’t feel like I was sparking creativity.

Maybe it’s a matter of “faking it ’til you feel it” sort of thing? Maybe, just maybe… if I do this again, I just might be able to incorporate all the aspects I’d like to?

Time will only tell…

What were your experiences?

What did you find helpful in this project? Were there any take away thoughts you had?